


Traveling Alone

by faithvegas



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Episode: s05e07 Amy's Choice, F/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 10:09:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithvegas/pseuds/faithvegas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor reflects after Amy chooses Rory over him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traveling Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my God????? I got series 5 on DVD and the more I watch it the more I'm like "wow the Doctor is clearly into Amy wow" sorry guys

The Doctor clamps his tongue tight between his teeth, eyes drifting back and forth between Amy and Rory.  
  
She picked him.  
  
And it should have been so obvious. He should know so much better. Nine hundred years, and he’s still so sure of himself. How had he not been cut down to size yet?  
  
He is so used to women falling in love with him, and so used to telling them no, he’d forgotten how it feels on the other side.  
  
“Competing” he had so blatantly called it; he and Rory were competing for her. He had wanted, still wants, so badly to be the gleam in her eye. To be the reason for her smiling. To be the only one she wanted.  
  
And he would almost argue that no, no he didn’t _love_ her, he only wanted the recognition he deserved for being as amazing as he was. This wasn’t _love_ ; it was the need for attention, for appreciation.  
  
He thinks maybe that this face, this new face so fresh and young, the way he was a cosmic toddler, maybe all of these things had started to affect him. Maybe he started believing that he was just young enough to run his fingers across the back of her hand, to press his nose into the crook of her neck and breathe her in, to be the one to keep her strong and present and grounded.  
  
But, she chose Rory. All nose, and awkward limbs, and sarcasm. She chose a nurse from Leadworth over the Last Timelord, the Savior of the Universe, over him. Over the Doctor.  
  
And he knew what it was like to fall in love with someone. To ache for the feel of them, and the sound of their voice, to feel heavy with want and fat with joy whenever they were near. He knew so well the feeling of being wanted desperately, of all eyes on him, to be pined after while he sat atop the world in his little box, above everyone, fully endowed with the power to tell them, “No, this could never work.”  
  
But for the first time in the longest time, he was someone’s second choice. The choice where maybe if Rory wasn’t around, she would come to him to feel his skin and trace the line of his jaw gentle with her eyes and probably the pads of her fingers.  
  
He squeezes his eyes shut, all wrinkled and brow knitted together, and drops his head down, mouth all a tight line and nostrils flared because _ouch_. He can feel the twisting and turning and bubbling in his stomach where the sting is beginning to settle just enough for him to realize that her decision had already been made.  
  
And he thinks vaguely of the way her soft lips like feather-down pillows pressed against his, and regrets momentarily that he fought the feel of her fingers and the palms of her hands and the smell of her hair.  
  
He regrets the fight he put up, but he knows whole heartedly, duel heartedly, that it _couldn’t_ work. That it could never work. That he would love and that even if she loved, she would age and wrinkle, grow old and tired and frail, while he stayed this, a cosmic toddler, forever. Or his face would change, and she would die or probably forget, and it burns him so badly to know that no matter how much or how vigorously or how convincingly or even how truly he loves someone, it could never work. Not while he is a Timelord, never aging, always changing, can’t stay in one place or even follow a linear time line. Not while everyone else is not.  
  
And he knows that eventually he will resign himself to not loving her, not so outwardly or blatantly. He will be happy for Amy, that she knows what she wants and who she wants and made the right decision. He will be happy for Rory that he was lucky enough to be first choice.  
  
This is the process he knows he will have to go through probably a thousand more times, and he knows that he should have made himself used to this by now. But it would be so much lonelier to remove all hope like that. And it’s so dangerous to travel alone.


End file.
